Cricket: Sammy Wants England Loss to Spur on Windies

Nottingham, England. West Indies captain Darren Sammy said they had been “dominated by the number-one team in the world in all formats of the game” as their tour of England ended without an international win.

Sunday’s seven-wicket Twenty20 defeat at Trent Bridge followed 2-0 reverses in three-match Test and one-day international series (rain led to a draw in the third Test and washed out the final ODI).

Not that the West Indies will have much time to lick their wounds, given they fly out from Britain on Monday ahead of Twenty20 matches against New Zealand in Florida on June 30 and July 1.

The teams then head to the Caribbean for five one-dayers and two Tests that will take them through to August.

“We fly tomorrow (Monday), we’ve got a game on Saturday against New Zealand in Florida and we don’t get a break until August 7,” said Sammy .

What made the limited overs defeats all the more galling for the tourists was that the West Indies had believed their best chance of success lay in the shorter formats.

However, they lost the two ODIS where play was possible by margins of 114 runs and eight wickets.

Sunday saw them recover from being 57 for three at the half-way stage to make 172 for four.

But World Twenty20 champions England, with Alex Hales making 99 on his Nottinghamshire home ground and sharing a stand of 159 with Ravi Bopara (59), responded with 173 for three.

While opener Dwayne Smith and Dwayne Bravo had shown plenty of fight and no little style while making fifties, the West Indies’ attack lacked penetration.

Even worse was their sloppy fielding, with England winning Sunday’s match on a misfield.

“I think looking at the squad we have for the one-day and T20 series, on paper we had a really strong team, but you need to go out and string together consistently good performances out there in the middle and that’s what England have done throughout the series and we haven’t,” said Sammy.

“We have got to be consistently good in all three departments, batting, bowling and fielding.

“We are doing some good stuff but we are not doing it consistently for long enough. We have to string together performances that will get the team to win.”

One of the biggest disappointments of the tour was Sunil Narine, who arriving late after a successful spell in the Indian Premier League and a meteoric start to his first-class career in the West Indies, was hailed as a “mystery” spinner capable of confounding England’s batsmen.

Yet those watching him for the first time in England would have been forgiven for thinking what all the fuss was about.

His return of none of 70 in the rain-affected drawn third Test at Edgbaston and one for 101 in the two one-dayers hardly hinted at future greatness and nor did his none for 28 in four overs at Trent Bridge.

“To be fair to Sunil, the wickets he’s played on haven’t always helped him or suited his play,” said Sammy.

“The more he plays out there on the international scene, there is more footage of you, so batsmen find ways to score off you.

“It happened to (Sri Lanka’s Ajantha) Mendis, when he first came out he was very difficult to pick but after a while people got used to him.

“But I know once Sunil gets the type of wickets that really suit him he will be very difficult to play.

“(England’s off-spinner Graeme) Swann has not been so effective in this series and he has been playing here throughout his career. It is Sunil’s first away tour, so he will learn from this experience.”Agence France-Presse

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